The Stanford Center for Law and Biosciences has decided to leave the WordPress servers for greener pastures: namely, the Stanford Law School blog aggregator.
This address will no longer be updated. All posts from this address have been migrated to the new address:
Please update your bookmarks and RSS feeds accordingly.
The ACLU filed suit Tuesday in the Southern District of New York seeking to invalidate patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.
The complaint alleges violation of Article I, section 8, clause 8 of the Constitution (the “patent” clause), the First Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, and 35 U.S.C. section 101 (patent subject matter eligibility).
The complaint can be accessed at http://www.aclu.org/images/asset_upload_file939_39568.pdf.
With recent decisions from the Federal Circuit limiting the types of inventions that are eligible for patent protection, the time may seem ripe for this test. The question, however, is whether challenging patents like these will ultimately advance innovation. Perhaps limiting the enforceability of such patents might better address some of the more troubling aspects they raise.